Book Reviews 127

Nationalist Ideology and Anti-Semitism: the Case of Romanian Intellectuals in the 193Os, Leon Volovici, translated by Charles Kormos, Studies in Andisemitism (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1991), xi +213 pp., ~25.~/$45.00 H.B.

Were it not for its dispassionate, well-balanced tone and wealth of documentation, Leon Volovici’s volume, Nationalist Ideology and Anti-Semitism: the Case of Romanian Zntellectuals in the 193Os, would be difficult to review by someone born in Romania, even by someone raised after World War II. The book traces the development of anti-Semitism in Romania during the period that preceded 1930, and focuses in great detail upon the decade of the 1930s and the eve of World War II, forcing the reader to go back to a particularly murky chapter in Romanian history, resurrecting such dreaded organisations as the Iron Guard, and personalities such as Alexandru C. Cuza, Nicolae Paulescu, Nicolae Iorga, Constantin Stere, Aurel C. Popovici, G. Bogdan-Duica, Octavian Goga, Nichifor Crainic, Nae Ionescu, Emil Cioran, Mircea Eliade, Constantin Noica, etc. The volume offers numerous quotations, and details the various degrees of involvement and often contradictory pronouncements made by these respected Romanian writers, scholars and intellectuals.

Volovici begins by assessing the place held by Eastern European nationalism in general, Romanian in particular. Although the author is interested primarily in the 193Os, he traces the origins of Romanian national awareness through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Throughout this process, the author is careful to point out Romania’s particularly vulnerable geographic position, the continuous danger presented by its neighbouring powers such as Turkey, Russia and Austria, the country’s yearning for a sense of identity, and other facts which made it ripe for the arrival of nationalism. Parallel to the birth of a Romanian national identity, Volovici gives us the reactions of a large number of politicians and intellectuals to even simple ideas, such as the granting of civil rights to the Jews living on the territory of Romania. The author identifies the ways in which the image of the Jew followed the negative stereotype ofthe ‘foreigner’, of the non-assimilating non- Christian.

Moreover, Volovici shows the unusual association of the ‘Jewish question’ with the ‘peasant question’, one of Romania’s central economic and political problems after ‘the advent of capitalism and its impact upon the old feudal social structures.’ As in Russia and Poland, ‘the presence of Jews as leaseholders and innkeepers in the villages was viewed as a cause of the decline of rural life and the impoverishment of the Romanian peasantry’ (p. 7). According to Volovici, ‘From the very start, journalists and writers contributed most intensely to the shaping of the cultural anti-Semitic stereotype’ (p. 9). The author gives examples of anti-Semitic organisations, parties and intellectual circles in nineteenth- century Romania. The primarily economic, but also social and cultural ‘Jewish threat’, Volovici points out, became ‘an inexhaustible subject of newspaper articles and political discussions.’ Furthermore, since the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Hungarian revolution included numerous Jewish protagonists and had a definite impact on the Jewish intellectuals of Romania, the negative image of the Jew as a ‘revolutionary anarchist and “Bolshevik” was strengthened’ (p. 21). Volovici emphasises the role of ideological anti-Semitism as expressed by the activities of Alexandru C. Cuza andNicolae Paulescu. He then analyses the role played by the nationalism of the famous Romanian historian Nicolae Iorga (1871-1940), with its contradictions. In the years 1922-1923, as the anti-Semitic movement assumed extreme forms, Xorga rejected it (p. 34).

The second chapter in the book is entitled ‘Between Democracy and Dictatorship: 1930-1938.’ In it Volovici explains the new political context for the ‘Jewish question’. He points out the great difficulties encountered by the Romanian State having to cope with the country’s new configuration and with the great depression of 1930-1933. The number of Romanian ethnic minorities-including Jews-represented thirty percent of the

128 Book Reviews

population, and the growing influence of Germany in Romanian politics ‘channelled almost exclusively through Romanian pro-fascist organizations’, led to sharper contra- dictions. As Volovici points out, in the late 1930s these opened the way for the Reich’s direct involvement in Romanian affairs (p. 46). ‘In 1938, a royal dictatorship was proclaimed in the country. Then, after the death of Codreanu, the Legionary movement was left without a leader. The Front of National Renascence was meant to replace the old Iron Guard. However, Armand Calinescu, the prime minister, was assassinated in March 1939, and King Carol was forced to abdicate in favour of General Ion Antonescu. In September 1940, Romania had practically become a ‘national Legionary state’(p. SO).

As Volovici points out in the next chapters, during the years preceding World War II, many Romanian intellectuals ‘discovered’ the Legionary movement (pp. 74-75). Such manifestations, he writes, were often characterised by ‘an abundance of compromise and opportunism.’ Adherences followed by ‘retractions were a recurrent phenomenon, depending upon the evolution of internal political events on the spectacular up and downs of the movement’ (p. 74). Whether the Iron Guard’s extreme anti-Semitism was adopted by conformist intellectual supporters ‘because of loyalty to a political movement that disallowed reserve or doubt, or because it expressed their own belief, which could only be harnessed by joining the Legion’ it is hard to state. One fact is irrefutable, however, ‘Based on an Orthodox Christian Spirit,’ embraced especially by many intellectuals, Romanian culture at the time ‘excluded the presence of the Jewish element and denied it equal opportunities of development and affirmation’ (p. 139).

Basically, according to Volovici, nationalist Romanian intellectuals of the interwar period can be divided into two major categories. First, there were ‘extremist ideologists obsessed with the elimination of the Jews.’ Among them were A.C. Cuza, N.C. Paulescu and C.Z. Codreanu. Second, there were ‘doctrinaires of nationalism supporting a rational’ anti-Semitism motivated by ethnic, social or other arguments. Nicolae Iorga was the leader and role model for the second group. Side by side, however, Volovici points out that there were also many ‘adversaries of anti-Semitism’ including ‘eminent cultural personalities’ such as Radulescu-Motru, Gabaret Ibraileanu, Lucian Blaga, Mihail Sadovenu, Tudor Arghezi, Gala Galaction, Eugen Lovinescu, George Calinescu, Iorgu Iordan and many others.

Viewed from a present day perspective, Romanian anti-Semitism-of all kinds- appears not only incomprehensible-in spite of the realisation that it actually existed- but self destructive. Pluralism and diversity could have been Romania’s greatest assets. The presence of minorities, especially the Jews, should have been seen as a positive contribution to the country’s culture. Instead of viewing the Jewish presence as a threat, Romania should have done everything possible to allow the Jews the practice of their remarkable talents. Paradoxically, while so much energy was spent in search for a ‘Romanian essence’, as the history of the past sixty years has proven, the country was moving fast toward disaster. Several generations of Romanians and Jews have paid a heavy price for their predecessors’ blindness to history, for Romania’s absurd efforts at surpassing the West in its worst manifestations: nationalism and xenophobia, and the Jews know this best.

May the events of December 1989 in Romania represent a new beginning, not only in that country’s history, but in its relationship with the Jewish nation. In this sense, Volovici’s study is a step in the right direction.

Millersville University Liliana Zancu